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The moves! They are becoming clearer. As many of you speculated, it seems that the retail version of Battlefield 3 will indeed require Origin to be installed on your computer in order to play it. Oh Twitter, how did we find out brief snippets of information (or organise anarchic uprisings against the grim hegemony of shoe shops) before you existed?

This admission by EA probably goes some way to explaining why the game won’t appear on Steam, because it would basically entail two Steam-like systems being folded around the game, and they would inevitably fight like giant sperm whales versus kraken in the magnetic depths of your hard-drive. Such a conflict would undoubtedly cause electronic terribleness to occur, and no-one wants that. That’s my understanding of the technical situation, at least. I suspect there are also overriding commercial monsters pulling the levers behind the scenes. This is the game could spread Origin about in the game-o-sphere, just as Counter-Strike and Half-Life 2 propagated Steam.

To be fair, EA is doing the exact same thing Valve did with Half Life 2: Making a new game from a popular series dependant on a new digital distribution service in order to persuade people to start using it. Nothing inherently wrong with that. It’s not like Steam was that great back then either. But it worked out great for Valve.

But yes for the consumers it’s annoying that we’re going to have to run multiple of these services.

Another big difference is that Valve are a privately owned company which–for the most part–seem to me to have the interests of the consumer as a consideration. EA is a much bigger and publically owned company that has to answer to shareholders, in a scenario where people are wallets and the shareholders are the only non-company people whom actually exist.

I know EA is only doing business, I accept and respect that, but very often I find that I don’t like how EA does business. And I’ll say again that naming their download service Origin was just a kick in the nuts for me that reopened old wounds. I’ll also say again that anyone who’d name something in such a way that would be offensive to Ultima loyalists can’t be very bright (or intelligent at all).

Considering how EA has done business in the past, how they’ve treated customers, and that the management of ‘Origin’ doesn’t strike me as particularly clever in any way that I can perceive… well, I just think that betting on Origin is a fool’s bet. And I am many things but I am not a fool. Some say that this is just the same as what Valve are doing and I get that, but Valve aren’t Steam.

There was one point where EA were as infamous as Activision now is and I’m seeing a relapse into those levels of notoriety. What you want to ask yourself is whether you’d use Origin if it was run by Activision and Kotick, and if your answer is no whereas it would be yes under EA, then you want to ask yourself why because there’s frankly no perceivable difference between how EA and Activision do business, currently.

+1 Ultima loyalist offended by the choice of using ‘Origin’ as a name, it really feels a bit too much like mockery of the wonderful company they acquired and then butchered, which, incidentally, produced some of my by far favourite games ever.

I like how Valve tells EA that they can’t sell BF3 through Steam, and it’s EA’s fault. EA sells through Direct2Drive, a competitor to Origin, and Impulse, another competitor to Origin, but it’s EA’s fault it’s not on Steam. Oh sure, Steam has GFWL games, but it’s because EA wants to install Origin so it’s EA’s fault. Oh sure, Steam is the publisher, not the dev, but EA is big and bad, so it’s EA’s fault. Oh sure, it’d be like Wal-Mart pulling HL2 from their shelves because of Steam, the exact opposite of the earlier example, but EA is bad, and it’s EA’s fault, so we twist the examples around. Valve has all the cards, and is making all the decisions, but it’s totally 100% EA’s fault, now, always, and forever.

It’s like EA murdered everyone’s dog at some point, I mean Jesus.

I seriously wish the cognitive dissonance of gamers could be harnessed as a power source – we could power every city on the planet for the next 1000 years.

Well I’m not going to touch it yet.
And while I’m a fan of Steam now, I wasn’t when it first came out. These types of programs need to go though several versions before their stable and secure.
Plus, EA’s frankly poo effort of a DLC manager for Dragon Age: Origins hardly fills me with confidence on their programming prowess. “You can’t load this save game because you have unauthorised DLC”. Sigh, log in in-game, still not authorised. Log out, close DA, reload DA. Ah, now I can load. But you know what, I can’t be arsed, the moment’s gone. It’s the gaming equivalent of coitus with a beautiful person, only to discover a nasty rash over their genitals. Utter turn off.

Anyone with half a brain is passing right by Origin and any games on it, BF3 is going to be a very poor game if just for the lack of incredibly basic features. Meanwhile RO2 is adding to their series instead of taking away from it.

It may be worth considering too that Steam was trail blazing. From what I recall of those dim and dusty memories of years ago, there were no other digital distribution services, and certainly no major ones. Valve made steam not because they wanted to avoid their competitors, but because they saw a need that wasn’t being filled, and to be fair one I and many others also did not see. Origin is trying to do what steam already does well, and adds nothing for the consumer.

@povu: the store came way later. Steam was pushed as a platform for Valve to easily and automatically update their games (CS in particular) without taking the whole multiplayer scene down whenever they’d patch something.

That said Valve has done significant effort to boost PC gaming wheras EA has a spiffy track record. While Valve will offer free games and updates EA on the other hand asked for you to buy ‘download insurance’ and nickle and dime you. The difference in how they approach or view customers is staggering.

What you definitely don’t want to do is think about things and come to a rational independent decision when a situation arises. No, much better to base your actions on what the body politik decided in like 1996 and spare yourself the trouble of independent thought!

Besides, I thought Activision were the ones you guys irrationally hate and tar every release over now? And also Blizzard or something?

@Bilbo: How is it irrational to expect EA to continue acting the same way they have in the past? Surely its irrational to expect them to change at this point?

People beat up on EA because either EA bought and then killed a series or company the person likes, they remember EA Spouse and all of the stories that came out afterwards, or they are getting sick of being treated like criminals. For many people, the value of what EA does wrong greatly outweighs the value of what they do right.

There are also plenty of reasons to dislike many other companies in the gaming business. Its not really a “pick one” sort of situation.

While I think EA generally treats its customers poorly, I can deal with installing Origin to play the next Battlefield game. I also understand that they’re just doing the same thing Valve did when starting Steam (Valve had and continues to have a far better record for treating customers fairly, but that doesn’t mean EA doesn’t get the option to compete).

What bothers me about this is that this strategy will certainly reduce the actual number of players for a game that needs a large playerbase to continue operating (ie, to maintain large numbers of decent servers in different locations around the world). So while EA continues to talk about “beating” MW3, in reality they’ve severely limited the number of people who will play BF3 in order to jumpstart Origin. While I think it’s a bit silly to skip a game you wanted to play just because it’s not on Steam, I think that a number of people who were on the fence to begin with will be doing just that.

Same deal, here. Valve used HL2 and CS’s clout to railroad Steam in, and EA’s doing the same, using a high-profile exclusive to force Origin into greater prominence. And yes, Steam wasn’t exactly the marvel it was today way back then. There’s nothing inherently wrong with establishing a precedent, so long as it’s ultimately positive.

In that way, we (may) win out in the end. Origin now has a VERY high bar to surpass, whereas Steam was more or less unprecedented. In the ideal situation, EA will be able to improve their service to match or come close to the market leader. Net win for everyone. I’m not entirely confident in this given EA’s track record, but hey, it’s not like Valve had an amazing track record when HL2 came out either (just one game, yeah?), and especially not as a game distributor.

That said, it’s always a little uncomfortable when someone uses a big title’s clout to establish a precedent, esp. when it’s something undesirable. Look at how that guy from Id was SOOOO happy that ActiBlizz were using Diablo III’s clout to force in always-online DRM. They did the same with Modern Warfare 2 and Starcraft 2 (the $60 PC game and new Battle.net), and so on and so forth. Ubisoft’s continually trying to establish a precedent of dicking over PC gamers at every opportunity, and so on.

@UberMonkey:
They really need to compete in terms of quality though. Simply flipping a switch and requiring us to use a specific platform to play the game is artificial competition! If EA were confident in their new platform, they’d allow people to buy it from steam and see who came out on top.

I know, and the guy DID NOT clarify what the hell he meant. he could mean a 1 time activation at install or the client might have to be running. Based on my experiences, it will probably be the one time thing.

I believe John fell asleep at the controls of it, and the idea veered off into a ditch, crashed, and caught fire. It’s still there, smouldering. It’s likely to explode and take John with it unless a plucky Lassie-type dog character doesn’t drag him from the wreckage.

I think they detect the Windows language setting, and since Puerto Ricans primary language is spanish (english is their official secondary language), their computers are set to “spanish”.
Origin devs thought that “spanish” language = Spain only.
Fun facts :
1) Puerto Rico does NOT have its own money. They use United State Dollars. USD.
2) Wikipedia : “The United States Congress legislates over many fundamental aspects of Puerto Rican life, including citizenship, currency, postal service, foreign affairs, military defense, communications, labor relations, the environment, commerce, finance, health and welfare, and many others.[59][60]”
3) Congresional Research Service (2011 Report) (www.crs.gov) ” For example, residents of Puerto Rico hold U.S. citizenship, serve in the military, are subject to federal laws, and are represented in the House of Representatives by a Resident Commissioner elected to a four-year term.”
=> So you only have USD in your country, you’re getting your ass blowed up in the Middle-East for Uncle Sam, you pay some of the USA taxes, can vote for some of the USA elections, must respect US federal laws, but you’re not accept on “Origin” (sic) because of your… origins.
Nice way to discriminate its customers, a great comeback of the “Offer void In Nebraska”, but this time for no reasons at all.
Or maybe these two : Complete ignorance of the devteam behind Origin ? Overall total lack of respect of EA for its customers ?

Why am I feeling more and more compelled to avoid Origin? I’m really not a Steam fanboy, I guess I just like having one place to shop. Maybe I trust Valve more than I trust EA. But why should I care? I really think I shouldn’t, but for some reason I do.

Oh fuck; a big company which doesn’t give a crap about all of us LIED to us. Lets not buy their games, we’ll make the difference.
You people are amazing; ranting on the interwebz has gone uphill on the last couple of years, and it’s becoming ridiculous. I don’t usually use this word, but crybabies? Yes, that definitely defines all of you, raging about something that noone with half a brain would let it bother him.
Origin works just fine, gosh.

good Christ, YOU can get it from ALOT of other sources, plus that damn comment was so vague, I’m not sure what he meant. it could just be a ONE TIME install validation. But, if means that much to you, i will have all the fun you won’t be having in BF3 :)

Basically I agree. I’m not a Steam fanboy.
But I can’t be bothered with another kind of DRM, another set of login details, an inferior service in terms of community etc. higher prices.
Frankly I’ll just keep playing TF2 and avoid this now.

“I think EA have probably lied to me about the reasons for their games disappearing from Steam”

I’m also getting that. This whole fiasco has just eroded trust and I can’t be bothered buying a game after these shenanigans.

Considering how EA fucked up some (non-gaming-related) parts of BF2, Origin can maybe solve some of those without making the game itself bad. In BF2, updates were a bitch, 1.5GB which MUST BE unpacked to your C:/ Drive before installing? And the server browser, multiplayer games and server browsers are now in use for how many years, and still everyone achieves to fuck this up in mindboggling varieties.
I’d be more happy if this wasn’t tied to yet another digital download service, but I guess I can at least wait and see how this turns out before ranting about it to hell and back.

If a game is too expensive for the entertainment content you will get from it, don’t buy it. Why does the platform matter? Why do you care if EA or Valve or Rupert Murdoch or CD Projekt or anyone else gets a cut or doesn’t?

^ haha @”it’s too expensive don’t buy it”, completely forgetting they’re not selling chairs or sandwiches but a specific video-games. If you want to play a BF-like game, you don’t have the choice, it’s EA or nothing.

You can’t make a Battlefield-clone without getting sued by DICE/EA, hated for not “innovating” and spliting the Battlefield-like playerbase. EA has de facto a monopoly over the “Battlefield” sector, and they’re trying to squeeze as much money as they can (until the IP die and the playerbase is looted by another vehicles+classes FPS).

That’s why everyone should be allowed to rage about any decisions EA takes (imo), the whole “great power => great responsibility” stuff.

1. If enough people fail to buy this game because it requires Origin be installed, then the game is not going to have the longevity of previous titles.

2. If Origin does not take off in any meaningful way, what does that mean for the games you have on there? This could go the way of the numerous MMO’s that have shut down and prevented any of their paying customers from playing at all. Sure, maybe BF3 is too big to fail, but is it big enough to keep Origin afloat?

The differences between now and nearly a decade ago is that when Steam came out, digital distribution just wasn’t a thing. Steam innovated, and they not only took a major risk when no one else thought it would pan out, but they’ve also treated their customers exceedingly well to become the DD behemoth that they are today. The problem with Origin is that EA is not innovating. They are literally copying the same exact idea that’s already been done, with fewer features, and are forcing players to adopt their new software if they want to play their games. I realize that Valve did the same thing, but it’s different: There wasn’t anything like Steam out before. They weren’t denying anyone from purchasing their game from wherever they wanted.

And frankly, Origin just stinks of a money-grabbing gimmick. Saturating the marketplace without new ideas is not a recipe for success. Look at the MMO genre, and how many MMO’s have gone down in flames as a result of just copying every other idea out there. Correct me if you think I’m wrong, but this Origin thing doesn’t appear to me to be EA trying to fill a need in the marketplace that other Digital Distributor’s aren’t covering. They’re not going after a demographic of potential customers that aren’t currently being catered to. All this is, is EA trying to steal existing customers from other services. Sure, their biggest target right now is Steam, but let’s not pretend that this doesn’t threaten the other DD’s that are currently selling EA.

My problem is, Origin does not seem like it’s destined to last. They are not innovating. They are not meeting some marketplace need or drawing from customers currently not being served. They are not coming up with a single unique idea that would bring happy customers away from Steam. Instead, they’re not giving people any other choice. They’re forcing them to do this when there are other, better services already established.

You can shrug this off, as I’m sure many people will. But I just have no faith in the longevity of this service, and even if I did, I have a hard time supporting a company that is denying me choices, offering me nothing worthwhile, but forcing me to use their stupid service if I want to play their games. And I’m going to vote with my wallet here. We’ll see what happens.

You’re so right. No other game on the planet has men with guns shooting each other.
If you want to play Battlefield, suck it up. Just like if you want to buy a Lamborghini (or a Coke) you suck it up. Your choice is not to buy, or not to buy under whatever conditions are present. Whining about it on the internet is just boring.

Drewski your attitude about it is ridiculous. You’re saying people should just suck up any change that happens to the product if they want to play it.

Why can’t he whine about it on the internet? It’s a good place as any for companies to pick up feedback from potential customers and realise why they might not be selling.

If Battlefield ends up not doing as well as they hoped at least they won’t be scratching their heads.

If there is enough of an outrage on the internet about silly Origin then if EA are smart enough they would change their plans. This has happened to other game companies back tracking after very poor feedback.

Your solution is for people to shut up and never whine about it, like that’s going to change anything…

I am giving Origin a EA a oportunity here. Hope is not wasted, but with a game like BF3 I doubt I will get screwed, I will probably put 100+ hours on the game, so it will end as very cheap enteirnament.. and very fun one :D

I wonder why something like this isn’t subject to class-action lawsuit. If any other company required you to do anything with their product other than use it at your leisure, they’d be coughing up dough on the court floor.

Yes, sir, shoes size 42. No problem. You’ll have to call us on every 5th of the month, though, or we’ll send a man to take the shoes away from you.

I know how Steam started and I do not pretend Origin is different in this regard. I merely wonder why this is legal. It is not obligatory server-side communication, it is obligation to use another product with the one you bought.

Happens all the time in spheres outside of gaming. Most fancy coffee makers require you to use their brands of coffee (or require you to save the plastic thingies it comes in then put your own coffee in, but that is similar to cracking a game.) Many cameras and other devices “require” you to use their proprietary storage devices of file formats even though they are perfectly capable of running others. It isn’t new and it isn’t isolated. It isn’t illegal because as a customer if you don’t like the restrictions your free to not buy it or find work around that will probably void your support with the original company

Would a better analogy not be buying a CD and requiring a CD player made by that record label in order to listen to it (replace the word CD with MP3 and CD player with MP3 player if you are a youngster)? I have absolutely no idea whether that would be illegal or not.

Dawngreeter : While i think it is legal, what they are doing, I soooo understand you..
Calneon,0p8 : And THAT is exactly the problem I have with it..
Malk_Content: “If you don’t like the service, you don’t have to buy it” – I officially hate that argument, because it’s wrong on so many levels.. Just to throw in one of them: to force someone to use specific nonreasonable service, which is absolutely not needed in any way is just stupid and mean. It’s like saying “of course you can watch that movie in our cinema since you bought the tickets, but you have to run through a parking lot.. Twice”. It’s the same case as with Diablo 3, Ubi-DRM (where at least i get the basic reason,although i think it’s stupid reason as well).. If there would be benefits for using a specific service, i would be more than happy and maybe I would even use it.. If there is a NEED to do that without a real reason, i pass and although it is my choice, I believe I have 100% right to blame them..

Noticed how recently all new GFWL games got their DLCs buyable through Steam (i.e. Fable 3)? Yeah, that’s why…

The patching method itself is hardly the problem (and most GFWL games on Steam uses both systems available to them to ensure that Steam users benefits from their service while retaining the GFWL way to ensure that retail owners also gets the updates), but the matter of purchasing DLC is. To make it easier to their customers Valve now requires the DLCs to be purchaseable through the Steam Store. The only company having an issue with this is EA.

EA don’t want to share the income from the DLCs with Valve, so their latest games are removed from the store which requires players to sign-up, buy and install the DLC through another third-party store.

Right, I think the older GFWL games were grandfathered in, like the DLC purchase and authorization for Fallout 3.

Also, I wouldn’t say that “The only company having an issue with this is EA.” You can’t buy the new Dragon Age 2 DLC through Steam either. Although, apparently you can buy it on the Bioware site and it will authorize inside Steam, which is some kind of in-between case. It will be fascinating to see what happens with Mass Effect 3 and its DLC on the Steam platform.

I don’t think it’s a question of GFWL games being grandfathered in. Valve’s new policy is most likely “DLC must be available from Steam in addition to wherever the hell else you’re selling it.” Knowing EA’s track record, they probably want to be the only ones to sell DLC, period.

I’m conflicted. On one hand, competition is good. However, EA doesn’t have a great track record of treating their costumers fair. Steam dominates, and they have to make everything perfectly right in Origin to have long-lasting success. What will happen with Origin when BF3 is forgotten?

Also, they didn’t start this off great, did they? Lying about their reason from pulling their games off Steam doesn’t exactly inspire confidence for the future.

The thing about monopolies is they work best for enforcing exploitative terms when they control necessities. Outside of hyperbole, I’m fairly certain computer games don’t qualify as necessities. For that reason I don’t really fear Steams potential to be awful in future very much, althought I recognise it’s plausibility, and it weighs little in comparison with my preference not to encourage Origin in it’s present state.

Speaking of which, does anyone have any thoughts on the plausibility of a unified format for the social network and content libraries so that alternative clients might access the same social networks and ownership information. Really, I just don’t want to run multiple versions of steam owned by various companies.

Don’t know about anyone else, but I bloody hate those shoe shops! Not really, I don’t care about them, but this is a shame, I wanted to play it easily without getting any other thing, but it seems such days are long past.

Nadeo recently came out and explain there reasons in full for not releasing on steam, there was no bland statements, nothign overeaching and it all made sense. Most of all they were honest and said “yes we want to link everything to maniaplanet”. As such I am still likely to get trackmania 2 (and have started playing nations again……. that game hates me :P)

EA are still using bland overreaching statements, drip feeding information everyone guessed a while ago and are generally being silly (the next rumor from the alpha/beta players is that it does actually have to run in the background while the game is running, something all the supporters are saying origin is better than steam for because you don’t need it, personally i don’t give a crap about that, at least it sits in the process list not like blizzards behind the scene stuff).

Does this also mean you must activate online before you can play then if you must use origin?

Unfortantly even if i wanted BF3 for PC (currently I kinda do, but nto while this is going on , they can wait a bit to get my hard earned bash) i cannot currently get it, being a poor XP user with no DX10.

Wasn’t going to buy it before, still not going to buy it. Wish EA would be a little more upfront about this, can we assume that Mass Effect 3 is going to require Origin too? What are the odds that BioWare Social Network is going to be integrated with Origin?

But Söldner has so many more tanks! And I’m only sort of joking, I got pretty giddy when I saw some of the bizarro old Russian vehicles in that game. I have a feeling BF3 will have your T-90s, your M1s, and if we’re really lucky, we’ll get a Challenger 2 for the team with the bad British accents.

If I’m going to be choosing between one or two tanks, then just give me Red Orchestra 2. Well, maybe I’m just much more excited for that game…

Dunno, I might be selling BF3 short, perhaps it will have a more substantial armored vehicle selection this time around. Either way, I’ve just never been a fan of the series, and haven’t seen anything out of BF3 to catch my interest. I’ll certainly consider it if gamers say good things when it comes out, though – while I think the whole Origin fiasco is stupid and a blatant marketing scheme, I don’t think it’s so onerous that I’m not willing to buy the game if it’s quality. Just doesn’t seem like that sort of deal breaker to me.

This is actually my biggest concern.
EA is quite willing to cripple 2 year old games – this would put even the single player features at risk of being considered too old to be worth allowing.
Valve has a whole different attitude to long term support – they seem to be embracing the long-tail sales.

Well I am a big Steam Fanboy and well I’m not happy to hear that I’ll need a second DRM program in addition to Steam. But at the same time as long as it’s a decently coded program that doesn’t steal resources I’ll be ok.

I hope Origin can be more seamless though. Less like Steam and more like Battle.net in Starcraft 2.

“This admission by EA probably goes some way to explaining why the game won’t appear on Steam, because it would basically entail two Steam-like systems being folded around the game,” – but we already have that with GfWL games on Steam. Hell, DOW2 in some kind of senseless madness actually requires both.

I don’t see this as a bad thing. Valve did the same with their games, so it would be a tad hypocritical if I bashed this while having Steam in my tray bar.

That said, if they just wanted to move all of their stuff to Steam, why bother bashing it as some Draconian scheme which robs publishers and developers? (Well, obviously we all know why they’d do that, but that’s just not nice.)

What about the other rumors that the reason games were pulled from Steam is that E.A. wanted access to the contact emails of individuals who bought the game from Steam?
Word is that’s the restrictive ability to interact with consumers and yet no one is saying one way or another.

I got to play around with Origin a bit, and while it’s got some nice polish, and maybe a few major selling point in terms of usability and flare (background loading of games), the fact that EA, a publisher, sells their own games on their own download service is a HUUUUUGE conflict of interest. They can’t even discount the games they sell because it would be undermining their distributors! Fail, EA, major fail.

After trying Origin with the BF3 Alpha, it’s a resource hog, it’s ugly, and I don’t want it. Before anyone goes “butomigosh it was just an alpha!” I’m talking strictly about Origin and how it interacts with the games, not the games themselves. I’ve always been a fan of the Battlefield franchise, shying away from the more popular Call of Duty franchise, but when this news hit on the 9th, the next day I my pre-order switched.

I’m confused as to what Origin actually did for me in the alpha. The webbased portal thing that you played the game through seemed to do everything, including patching, Origin just sat there and got in the way.

I wasnt interested in this since they announced they wont release mod-tool and want to milk their fanbase with payed DLC. This dosnt come as a surprise to me. It will make milking so much easier for them. Im just a bit sad DICE had to agree to the EA way. They used to be a great developer with a strong modding community. Well played EA indeed.

In reality i am happy with companies trying to bring competition, instead of Valve monopolizing and shaping the pc, valve have already done way too much damage to the PC, they are like the M$ of operating systems, except they use $team.

I will just give some examples, before valve fanboys start foaming:

1They are forcing people to use their terrible steam drm for games that aren’t even theirs like Just cause 2 and others
even if u buy them at greenmangaming,gamersgate etc
2All the games sold on their store, you have to put up with the draconian steam drm if u want to play them.
3They have brainwashed a lot of people into the “all the games i buy need to be on steam”
4As a monopoly they decline great games, just cause they sell bad on XBLIG, or really awful reasons, making those games much less viable in the pc market, hence hurting us, this is a result of step 3

Steam are really hurting the pc, before steam came along pc was the main platform and now it is what it is…. sad times.

Yes Nalano, but why should EA just give up that digital market without a fight? Why should they just accept the situation as it is and carry on giving away a chunk of their own profit to Valve for every digital sale?

In all these threads on RPS over the last couple of months, I haven’t seen a single argument for why EA shouldn’t do this. All I’ve heard is ‘but…I want to have all my games in a nice Steam list by itself!’ ‘Even if it means these games’ publishers have to give away a chunk of their profits to Valve all the time!’ ‘I don’t care, I just want everything on Steam…because….just BECAUSE!’

Sorry, but that’s a completely farcical argument with no basis in reality.

But really, I don’t like the trend in the industry overall. I’d rather they divorced the service backend from the game itself. Package deals like this are, of course, monopoly-makers. Just because Valve did it doesn’t make it right.

I recall this was an argument you did raise already earlier on. For a small market area like that of Finland, the more the companies are creating exclusive services on digital distribution the more I am effectively forced to pay from my games. I don’t have a chance to go to a multitude of different gaming stores that are competing with prices of popular games.

Certainly, I can still buy my boxed games from various internet services and reap the harvest of actual competition that exists abroad. However, I have no actual interest to buy boxed games and would much prefer digital distribution for environmental reasons alone. Hence, the fact that EA, Valve and Blizzard have created their own monopolies of digital distribution will effectively limit my chances of finding those special offers via digital distribution services.

After all, these monopolies also dictate prices across the field. I cannot find anyone from the internet to sell these games for a lower price, i.e., there is no competition. We can see that e.g. the price of FIFA football games or Starcraft 2 keeps on premium rate for ages and there is no competition. This is at least what I do oppose on digital distribution monopolies, regardless of whom creates such barriers. Hence, it is fairly irrelevant if this is what Valve has done or does as I do despise their monopoly in a similar fashion.

I trust Valve; I don’t trust EA. That’s why Steam is ok and Origin is not. I won’t be buying BF3 nor will I buy any other Origin exclusive product and I’m pretty disgusted this is the way things are going for the industry.

People have lerned to trust Valve in what they do because they offer a top notch service, treat their customers well and listen to the community. They deliver on the games front every single time and dont forget how important modding is to the PC. On the other hand, EA has earned alot of mistrust in the PC gaming community, at least the players that are around long enough to remember how many great studios EA destroyed, how they where catering towards the console market for ages and delivering half-arsed console port to the PC. They also restrict traditional PC developers from releasing modding tools, an integral aspect of the longevity of a game on the PC. They are doing the same thing now to DICE.

WHO CARES ? EXCEPT INANE FANBOYS?
You sucked all the shit from steam, and now you want to hate EA for doing it? Why? Hypocrisy rules! “but steam is good” yes, but remember when the fucking thing gave you BSODs, hogged all your fucking RAM, crashed, used up loads of system resources for no reason, was REQUIRED for games!!!!!! And in general was a fucking pain?

You sucked that up in order to enjoy a different, good product. But now you won’t suck this shit up? Well, then stop fucking bitching, your righteous cause is not righteous, and you only come off as a whiny little bitch.

“WHO CARES ? EXCEPT INANE FANBOYS?
You sucked all the shit from steam, and now you want to hate EA for doing it? Why? Hypocrisy rules! “but steam is good” yes, but remember when the fucking thing gave you BSODs, hogged all your fucking RAM, crashed, used up loads of system resources for no reason, was REQUIRED for games!!!!!! And in general was a fucking pain?

You sucked that up in order to enjoy a different, good product. But now you won’t suck this shit up? Well, then stop fucking bitching, your righteous cause is not righteous…”

Won’t buy it. I’ve had two before (Impulse and Steam) and basically ignored Impulse, it was just there to annoy and waste resources, gog.com now fills that hole (NO CLIENT YAJ!), so between Steam and Gog I’ll have enough :)

Origin’s fine, it’s absolutely no problem at all. If you have any kind of EA login/pw then you’re already set. You don’t even need to have Origin running to play a game associated with it, but if you do you get access to the whole Steam-style in-game UI. Which is totally optional. Jesus Christ people, it’s not like you have to plug your first born child into the phone socket to play BF3.

Not according to the beta/alpha testers. It sounds as if running Origin in the background will be mandatory to be able to play BF3, similar to what you’re forced to do with Steam.

I’m all for having Origin as a secondary run-download-remove download client for my retail bought game, but I’m not interesting in having a secondary Steam running on my system. Steam is, by far, enough.

A few months ago, a bunch of boring men in boring suits sat down on a meeting to discuss the fall of their brick and mortar business of selling games. Consoles are taken over by more powerful portables and the lie that PC was dying is slowly losing its effect on the millions upon millions of customers.

“I will call up Gabe,” Riticello says taking out his phone, “let us test these waters by scheduling an EA week on their Steam thing.”

The week passed and they stared at the Steam metrics go crazy like a continuous earthquake made up of aftershocks that never ended. Mr. Riticello sank down to his seat made of a hundred neckbeard foreskins donated after circumcision.

“It is done then… Newell will never know what hit him. Gather up our best developers. I’m sure we’ve softened them up with our friendship program. They’re nothing without us even with their cute little titles. They are in no position to deny us.”

Another suit spoke up concerned. “What of the customers sir? We are going to meet some resistance.”

“Of course not. This industry has as short attention span as they do memory. We will give out a press release before Valve could react. Pre-emptive strike the American way. They will run to our side as they remember the recent games they loved us for. Inform our PR consultants that we’ll need people on the threads. Let us cash in thisssssssssss…. good favor we’ve been harvesting.”

In Valve offices, Gabe gets a call. After a brief moment, he looks at the game prototypes he has yet to review on his screen.

“Do what you have to do. We’ll focus on getting out the content we’ve been working on. No comments are necessary. We have more important things to worry about.”

marckcockjin, great as always!
Did you know that I always quoting your early comments at RPS towards this steam vs origin things in my comment at the other game sites and forum?? Just dont sue me coz of that! :)

So if this situation continues and other publishers develop their own Steam/Origin type client ,how long is it going to be until you need to have at least 5 different clients installed to download anything?

Not long. I already have Steam, Origin, Games for Windows Marketplace and GoG download applications on my PC. For the most part they all work fine (haven’t had any crashes/bugs with any) and are small enough programs. The strange part is only one require that I launch it first in order to play a game.

I’ve no problem with this, so long as it works. I considered buying it from Origin until I saw they were charging £10 more than Amazon.
Not sure how that works when they’re only adding a few bits of dlc.

This pirate-logic is the logic of sillyness. The option is to buy or not to buy instead of to buy or to pirate. Ferrari comes with Pirelli tires! I betcha they will moan and bitch when I steal their Ferrari and run it with Bridgestone!

I used Origin to register the copy BFBC2 that I bought on Steam and am very pleased with it. Now I don’t have to launch Steam or Origin to play the game. It really works nicely. I guess if I wanted to I could launch Steam separately before BFBC2 but I see no advantage in doing this.

As long as the BF3 is being sold in various retail distributors and download services I have no issues with this.